Russian Olympic team at the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

MOSCOW, July 21. /TASS/. The recent report delivered by the Independent Commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) affected today’s ruling of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in regard to Russian field and track athletes, Gennady Alyoshin, an official with the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), told TASS on Thursday.

Earlier in the day the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) turned down the appeal from ROC and 68 national athletes against the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), thus closing the doors for Russian field and track athletes to the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Brazil.

"To be honest we hoped for the positive ruling as we had done enormous work to overcome the anti-doping crisis," Alyoshin, who is the head of the ROC’s Interim Coordinating Committee, said in an interview with TASS. "The IOC took notice of it on July 21 as our [Coordinating Committee] group and ROC did an incredibly difficult work to resolve all issues."

"We believe that we have fulfilled all set criteria," he said. "However, it seems that all the processes were affected to some extent with WADA’s recent report and Rodchenkov’s statements in the background."

"We hoped they saw and understood that we passed the Rubicon on January 16, when the Congress approved the new managing staff of the ARAF [All-Russia Athletics Federation], amended the federation’s charter, sacked unwanted people and we hoped that the sports solidarity would prevail," Alyoshin said.

"We had the full right to believe that CAS would rule in our favor," he added.